Rotary internal-combustion engine.



H. E. ELSON. ROTARY INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE. e

APPLICATION FILED MAR. 28, 1914. 1,1 16,809, Patented Nov. 10, 1914.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

H. E. ELSON.

ROTARY INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE. APPLIGATION FILED MAR. 28, 1914.

1,1 16,809, I Patented Nov. 10, 1914.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

Patented Nov. 10, 1914 3 SHEETS-SHEET 3.

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HARRY E. ELSON, OF MASONTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA.

ROTARY INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINE.

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Specification. of Letters Patent.

Patented Nov. it), 1914.

Application filed March 28, 1914. Serial No. 827,980.-

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that l, HARRY E. ELsoN, citizen of the United States, residing at Masontown, in the county of Fayette an State of Pennsylvania, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Rotary Internal-Combustion Engines, of which the follit) lowing is a specification.

My invention relates to internal combustion engines, and particularly to that type of engine wherein the charge is compressed in a compression chamber then ignited and the exploded gases allowed to enter the working chamber.

The invention further relates to that type of explosive engines in which a rotor is operated by the explosion of the gases as contra-distinguished from an engine in which a piston is used.

Another object of my invention is the construction of a very simple explosive engine in which the intermittent explosion of a charge acts to continuously rotate the rotor.

A further object of the invention is to provide means for compressing a charge, firing the charge and permitting the highly compressed gases to be projected againsta rotorto drive the latter.

A further object of the invention is the provision of an engine having therein a rotor formed with pockets on its periphery, of means for compressing a charge in a combustion chamber, igniting said compressed charge, and then allowing the ignited gases to be projected against the rotor, the combustion chamber being of such size that the contents of the combustion chamber will act successively upon a plurality of pockets in the rotor.

A further object of the invention is the provision in connection with arotor and a combustion chamber of a valve controlling the passage of explosive gases from the combustion chamber to the periphery of the rotor with means for holding said valve open after the admission of the gases for a predetermined period until the force of the exploded charge has been sufiiciently expended and then closing said valve to provide for the compression, in the combustion chamber, of a new charge.

Other objects will appear in the course of the following description.

My invention is illustrated in. the accompanying drawings wherein: J

Figure 1 is a side elevation of an engineconstructed in accordance with my invention; Fig. 2 is a vertical section through the engine parallel to the rotor; Fig. 3 is a vertical section on the line 3-3 of Fig. 2; and Fig. 4 is a section on the line 4-4 of Fig; 1.

Referring to the drawings and particularly to Fig. 2, 2 designates a rotor mounted upon a shaft 3 and provided with a plurality of pockets 4 formed in its periphery. Each pocket has an inclined bottom and an end wall designated 5. The rotor is mounted within a casing 6,the interior of the casingbeing of such form that the upper half or portion of the rotor casing conforms to the degree of curvature of the rotor, while the lower half thereof has a. peripheral wall eccentric to the ed e face of the rotor whereby a space 7 is le t in the lower portion of the casing between the rotor and the casing. By'this construction the upperportion of the rotor casing fits snugly. The rotor casing'is also provided with an inlet port or passage 8, an outlet port 9 and with a plurality of pockets 10 disposed on its inside face and reversely disposed to the pockets in the rotor. It will be noted that the inlet passage 8 gradually expands from the entrance of the passage to the inner half of the rotor casing.

Mounted upon the rotor casing or supported in any suitable manner is a combustion chamberll which preferably extends tangentially with relation to the casing 6.

. Extending at right angles to the combustion chamber 11 is a compression chamber 12 wherein operates a piston 13, this piston be-, ipg connected by means of the pitman 14 to :a wrist pin. 15 shown as mounted upon a crank disk 16 carried upon a shaft 17. This shaft carries upon it the band-wheel -18 which is driven by a band 19 passing over a band-wheel 20 mounted upon the shaft 3. Thus the shaft 17 is operated in correspondence with the shaft 3,.

The compression chamber 12 is open at its lower end and is connected at its upper end tothe chamberll bya pipe 21. This pipe 21 opens into the chamber 11 and entrance of gas into this chamber is permitted by means of an inwardly openingcheck valve 22 shown most clearly in Fig. 3, which permits the entrance of gas but prevents the return of the gas from chamber 11 into chamber 12. The charge enters into the chamber 12 by means of a pipe 23 leading from the carbureter or any other suitable source of 7 against the walls 5of a pocket 4. This will entrance and within this pipe 23 is disposed a check valve 24 which permits the entrance of gas into the chamber 12 upon the downward stroke of the piston, but prevents the.

return of the gas upon the upward stroke of the piston.

The chamber 11 constitutes a combustion chamber and disposed in the head of this chamber is a spark plug 25 of any usual or ordinary type connected to any usual or ordinary timing apparatus. The other extremity of the chamber 11 is set at an angle to the main body' of the chamber and at the junction of this angular extension 11 is formed a valve seat 26 with which coacts a valve 27 having the form of a piston.

The valve has extending from it the spindle 28 which passes through a suitable stuffing box carried upon the extremity of the extension 11 and the end of the spindle passes through a bracket 29 forming part of the frame of the machine. The spindle has upon it a collar 30 and disposed between the bracket 27 and this collar is a coil spring 31 which urges the piston valve 27 to its seat. The contracted outer end of the passage 8, as will be seen in Fig. 2, opens into the chamber 11 just behind the seat 26 so that when the piston valve 27 is in its closed position this passage 8 will be closed and when the piston valve is forced outward the passage 8 will be disclosed.

In order to hold the valve 27 in its projected position and away from its seat for a certain predetermined time, I provide the detent or latch 32 which is pivoted at 33 to ears projecting up from the casing 6. This latch 32 is angular in form so as to provide an arm 34 which will engage behind the collar 30 when the valve is forced outward, a spring 32 acting to force the latch 32 up into engagement with the collar when the collar is pushed rearward. The lower extremity of the arm 34 is angularly bent as at 35 and adapted to be engaged by one or a plurality of pins 36 projecting from a disk 37. The latch will be retracted upon each complete revolution of the shaft 38 upon which the disk 37 is mounted. The

shaft 38 is mounted in suitable bearings upon the base of the bracket 27.

The operation of my invention is as follows: Upon the downward stroke of the plunger or piston 13 a harge will be drawn into the chamber 12 ar pon the upward stroke of the piston 13 this charge will be compressed and forced into the chamber 11. When the gas in the chamber 11 has reached a suflicient degree of compression it is ignited through the medium of the spark plug 25 and the exploding gases will drive back the piston valve 27 and thus disclose the passage 8.

through the passage 8 and be projected The gases will now pass act to rotate the rotor and as each pocket 4 arrives in front of the discharge passage 8 it will receive the force of the exploded gases. When the piston. valve '27 is forced back it is held in its retracted position for a predetermined time until the tappet pin 36 of disk 37 engages with the latch and.

withdraws it from its engagement with the collar 30, whereupon the spring 31 will return the valve 27 to its seat. The shaft 38 is operated by means of a band-wheel 39 over which passes a band 40which engages the band-wheel 41 mounted upon the shaft 3. It will be seen that because of the relative sizes of the band-wheel 41 and the band-wheel 39, that it will require a plurality of rotations of the shaft 3 in order to cause one complete rotation of the shaft 38. Thus the force of the gases exploded in the chamber 11 will be used to turn the rotor 2 a plurality of times before the valve 27 will again close. The explosion takes place in the chamber 11 just as the piston 13 starts upon its downward path. It will be seen that the ignited gas is forced into the rotor pockets under a pressure the same as that in the chamber 11 and as the rotor pockets pass the pockets 10, the compressed gases will necessarily expand and still further impel the rotor forward. The compressing piston 13 makes one reciprocation for a plurality of pockets, thus using the entire expansion of the gases, and furthermore, the compression valve 27 is not released by the latch until after the compression piston has moved upward sufliciently to replace the burned gases in the combustion chamber volume for volume, thus insuring as near as possible, a fresh charge each time in the combustion chamber. As the pockets containing the burned gases pass the pockets 10, exhaust'takes place, the space between the rotor in the casing being gradually enlarged as at 6. This makes a noiseless exhaust and thus eliminates the necessity of using a muffler. Preferably the compression cylinder 12 and the =;combustion chamber 11 are jacketed or water-cooled, but as the use of water-cooling jackets is old, I have not illustrated this construction.

While I have shown bands 19 and 40 as being the means for transmitting power from the rotor shaft to the shafts 17 and 38, I wish it of course understood that other forms of gearing might be used for this purpose.

It will be of course obvious that the rotor, the shaft 17 and the shaft 38 all rotate with a certain fixed relation and that the size of the compression cylinder and the size of the combustion chamber also have a certain The theory of operation of my invention may be illustrated as follows :The piston 13 will make one stroke to compress the gas in the combustion chamber. The cubical content of the compression cylinder is equal to the cubic content of the rotor pockets plus the cubic content of the combustion chamber. The combustion chamber has approximately one-fourth the cubic content of the compression chamber. Assuming that there are four rotors mounted upon the shaft 3 in one casing (in which case they would be suitably separated from each other) or in four casings, each rotor mount ed in its own separate casing and having the proper attendant.mechanis m, and assuming also that the ratio of gearing from the rotor shaft 3 to the compression cylinder shaft 17 to be 4:1, there would be an explosion at each one of the rotors for each revolution of the shaft 3. If eight rotors are used there would be, an explosion for every half revolution and so on, the gearing operating the latch 32 being such as to operate harmoniously with the rest of the machine.

In some'cases it might be advantageous to use more than one compression and combustion chamber 0n the same rotor, and this I regard as part of my invention.

The compression cylinder might be closed at its lower end forming a crank case or be open as the necessity might suggest.

In order to prevent back firingI prefer to dispose a double check valve between'the compression and combustion cylinders and I also contemplate providing means whereby the spring may be regulated.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim is:

' 1. In an engine of the character specified, a rotor, a casing therefor, a combustion chamber having an opening leading into the rotor casing, to supply the burnt gases thereto, an automatic valve for closing the said opening, detent means for holding the valve open, and means for operating the de* tent to release the said valve at a predetermined period.

2. In an engine of the character described, a rotor, a casing therefor, a combustion chamber having communication with the rotor casing to admit of the passage of the burnt gases thereto, avalve normally closing the intercommunicating passage between the combustion chamber and the rotor casing and adapted to be operated by the expanding gases when ignited, a detent for holding the valve open a given period, and

operating means for freeing the valve from the detent to admit of such valve closing.

3. In an engine of the character described, a rotor casing, a rotor therein having pockets in its periphery, a combustion chamber having an outlet opening leading into the interior of the rotor casing, a valve clos ing the outlet from the combustion chamber, means urging the Val"6 to closed position, a

latch adapted to engage the valve and hold the character described, a rotor casing, a I

rotor therein having pockets inits periphery, a shaft-upon which the rotor is mounted, a combustion chamber having an outlet opening discharging into the rotor casing, a valve normally closing the outlet opening, means for resiliently holding said valve closed, a latch adapted to automatically engage the valve when it is opened and holding it open, means operatively connected to the shaft of the rotor. for releasing said latch at a predetermined moment, and means for compressing a charge within the combustion chamber.

5. In a rotary engine of the character described, a rotor casing, a rotor mounted therein and formed with pockets, a combustion chamber having an outlet opening discharging into the rotor casing, means for compressing a charge within the combus tion chamber, a valve normally closingsaid discharge opening, a spring holding said valve closed, said valve being opened by ignition of the charge, and means for holding said valve opened for a predetermined interval.

6. An internal combustion engine of the character described including a rotor casing, a rotor therein formed with pockets, a combustion chamber having an opening discharging into the interior of the rotor casing, a compression chamber connected to the combustion chamber, a piston operating in the last-named chamber, means operatively connecting the rotor with the piston to operate the latter, means for igniting the charge in the combustion chamber, a valve normally closing the discharge opening of the combustion chamber, a spring yieldingly holding said valve closed, a latch for hold ing the valve opened after the valve has portion of which snugly surrounds the exterior of the rotor, the otherportion being spaced from the periphery of the rotor, this last-named portion being provided with'an exhaust opening and the first-named portion having an inlet passage, a combustion chamber having adischarge port communicating with said inlet passage, means operated by the rotor for compressing a charge within the combustion chamber, a valve normally preventing the passage of gas from the combustion chamber through its discharge opening, a sprin holding said valve closed, a latch adapte to hold the valve open when it is forced from its seat, and means operatively connected to the rotor for releasing said 1 valve after a predetermined interval.

8. In an internal combustion engine of the character described, a rotor, a rotor-casing, the rotor being provided with a plurality of pockets in its periphery, a combustion chamber, a valve controlling the passage of explosive gases from the combustion'chamber to the rotor, means for compressing the .charge within the combustion chamber,

'means for "igniting the charge in the com- HARRY E. ELSON. as

'3' 'Witnesses: K

FRANK J. CONNELL, EARL D. LONGENECKER. 

